three horses eating hay

The Essential Role of Forage – Why FeedXL Starts Here

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Forage isn’t just an optional extra in your horse’s diet—it is the foundation. At FeedXL, the number one reason a diet fails to meet a horse’s nutritional needs is a lack of sufficient forage. Time and time again, when we analyse diets that are causing issues—whether it’s poor condition, behavioural problems, or digestive upset—the root cause is not enough hay, pasture, or other roughage. So why is forage so critical?

To answer that, we need to go back—way back—to the horse’s origins.

Horses: Built to Forage

Horses evolved as grazing foragers. In their natural environment, wild horses would roam up to 30 kilometres each day in search of a continuous supply of grass and shrubs. This slow, near-constant foraging served two key purposes:

  1. It kept their digestive system working as it was designed to—constantly processing small amounts of high-fibre food, slowly and steadily.
  2. It matched their energy needs with a low-calorie, high-fibre intake spread across the entire day.

This evolutionary background means the horse’s entire digestive tract—from their sensitive stomach to the complex microbial fermentation in their hindgut—is built around processing large amounts of fibrous forage.

Fast forward to today, and we see a dramatically different picture. Domestic horses are typically confined to smaller paddocks, or stabled, fed concentrated meals twice a day, and often rely heavily on high-energy feeds or supplements. While modern feeding practices allow us to meet specific energy and nutrient demands (especially in performance horses), they often overlook one critical fact: forage must come first.

Why Forage First?

At FeedXL, we always start a diet with forage. Why? Because when you get the forage right, you’re solving 80–90% of the nutritional equation. Forage provides:

  • The bulk of a horse’s energy (calories), especially for those in light to moderate work.
  • The essential fibre that keeps the digestive system moving and prevents issues like colic, gastric ulcers, and behavioural changes.
  • A wide array of nutrients, from protein and minerals to vitamins and water (particularly in lush pasture).
  • Satiety and psychological wellbeing, mimicking the horse’s natural grazing patterns and reducing boredom or anxiety.

Even the most perfectly balanced supplement can’t replace the need for good-quality forage.

Common Problems Caused by Inadequate Forage

When horses aren’t getting enough forage—or the quality is too poor—issues can snowball quickly. Some of the most common signs we see include:

  • Weight loss or failure to maintain condition despite high-grain diets.
  • Colic and other digestive upsets caused by lack of gut motility or microbial imbalance.
  • Gastric ulcers, particularly in stabled or performance horses.
  • Stereotypic behaviours like cribbing, weaving, or excessive chewing.
  • Nutritional imbalances, especially if the base diet is made up of hard feeds rather than fibre-rich forages.

In FeedXL, these problems often show up clearly in the analysis—low fibre intake, poor calcium to phosphorus ratios, insufficient vitamin and mineral coverage. Almost always, the first recommendation is to go back to the basics and boost forage levels.

FeedXL’s Approach: Forage First, Then Balance

When you create a diet in FeedXL, you’ll notice the very first step is selecting and inputting your horse’s forage—hay, pasture, haylage, or chaff. Everything else is built on top of that. Why? Because:

  • Forage sets the foundation of the diet, supplying most of the horse’s daily energy, fibre, and bulk nutrients.
  • Accurate assessment of forage quality and quantity allows us to see what’s missing and where a supplement or concentrate might be genuinely needed.
  • It avoids over-supplementation, which can be harmful or just plain expensive.

This forage-first method ensures we’re not using expensive feeds to solve a problem that could be fixed with a simple increase in hay or adjustment to grazing time.

Forage is the foundtion

Forage is the foundation of your horse’s diet.

How Much Forage Is Enough?

As a general rule, horses should be fed at least 1.5% to 2.0% of their bodyweight in forage per day. For a 500 kg horse, that’s a minimum of 7.5 kg of hay or pasture dry matter daily—and often more. For horses in light work or on a forage-only diet, the figure may be closer to 10–12 kg/day depending on quality.

When entering a diet into FeedXL, pay close attention to your forage weight estimates. If you’re unsure how much your horse is actually eating—whether pasture intake or hay—take the time to weigh hay nets, monitor grazing, or use a pasture intake calculator to get it right.

In Summary: The Forage Rule

At FeedXL, our golden rule is simple: Don’t build a diet—build a forage base. Only once the horse’s fibre and forage needs are met do we look at layering in concentrates, grains, or supplements – only if they are required. This approach respects the horse’s natural biology, supports gut health, and leads to far better long-term outcomes—physically, mentally, and nutritionally.

If your horse’s diet isn’t quite working, start by asking: Is there enough forage?

Chances are, the answer lies in the forage, not the feed. Need help figuring out your horse’s forage intake or if your hay is providing enough nutrition?

Log in to your FeedXL account and let us do the hard work for you—starting with forage, as the base.

 

Not a FeedXL member? Become one today!

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Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

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Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

Hay with a horse in the background

Why does FeedXL choose to utilize WSC instead of ESC when calculating NSC?

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Water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC) or Ethanol-soluble carbohydrates, that is the question

There is ongoing debate within the equine community regarding whether water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC) or ethanol soluble carbohydrates (ESC) hold greater significance when evaluating the safety of forages and feeds for horses prone to laminitis. When discussing or calculating non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) in a diet, FeedXL opts for the inclusion of (WSC) along with starch to determine NSC.

Here’s the rationale behind this choice. WSC encompasses simple sugars as well as fructans, whereas ESC solely represents the measurement of simple sugars. Previously, it was believed that hindgut acidosis, resulting from fructan fermentation, was the primary cause of pasture-associated laminitis, similar to the effect of starch in grain overload. However, through research, it has been discovered that sustained high insulin levels are responsible for pasture-associated laminitis. Nevertheless, can we conclude that the absorption of simple sugars, as measured by ESC, is solely responsible for the insulin response? While simple sugars directly impact insulin levels, there are two potential ways in which fructans could also influence the insulin response.

Firstly, fructans are carbohydrates with varying chain lengths, consisting of fructose sugar molecules joined together with a glucose molecule at the end. Although most of these fructose bonds are not broken down by a horse’s enzymes, it is believed that some fructans, particularly the shorter chain ones, may undergo acid hydrolysis in the stomach or microbial fermentation in the small intestine. This process produces simple sugars, namely fructose and glucose, which can be absorbed by the horse and contribute to an insulin response.

Secondly, undigested fructans pass into the hindgut, where they undergo rapid fermentation. This fermentation leads to a significant increase in bacteria that preferentially ferment fructans, resulting in the production of lactic acid. The change in hindgut environment, becoming more acidic, causes a shift in microbial populations and reduces the diversity of microbes, including the desirable fiber-fermenting ones. While research in this area is still in its early stages, it is plausible that hindgut microbes can influence the insulin response, similar to humans.

The FeedXL Difference

Using WSC to calculate NSC

Using ESC to calculate NSC may underestimate NSC and ignore fructans, potentially putting your horse at risk.

Hence, FeedXL recommends and uses the more conservative approach by considering WSC when examining the NSC component of forages (NSC = WSC + Starch). This approach is more conservative because WSC values are consistently higher than ESC values and still aligns with the principle of minimizing insulin spikes by limiting dietary simple sugars. Additionally, by maintaining low fructan levels in the diet, the negative impact on hindgut microbial populations caused by fructan fermentation is minimized, indirectly influencing the insulin response.

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

Close up photo of grass

Determining Pasture Quality

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Entering ‘Pasture Quality’ for Accurate Diets

We all know that forage should be a key component of your horse’s diet, but not all pasture is created equally. With pasture sometimes forming the majority, if not all, of our horse’s diets, it’s important to enter pasture quality as accurately as you can in FeedXL.

Pasture quality corresponds with the amount of digestible energy, crude protein, macro minerals and vitamins your pasture is providing. Therefore, pasture quality determines what else you may (or may not) need to supply in your horse’s diet to meet their nutritional requirements.

We like to keep it simple when it comes to deciding pasture quality – by looking at colour and presence or absence of seed heads (this is basically the stage of maturity of your grass). Be sure to note that when pasture is overgrazed (less than 1 inch in height), it’s unlikely you’ll see any seed heads, therefore colour is your major guide.

So, next time you’re entering your pasture use the definitions and images below to help you determine quality.

Pasture Quality

Overgrazed

Excellent

  • Green
  • Actively growing
  • Very leafy
  • Virtually no flowers or seed heads visible
 Excellent overgrazed pasture

Good

  • Green
  • May or may not be actively growing
  • Flowers and/or seed heads are present
  • Plants are beginning to mature and become stemmy
 Good pasture

Average

  • Green to yellow or brown
  • Most plants are stemmy and/or have visible flowers and/or seed heads present

Poor

  • Completely brown
  • Plants are stemmy and/or have visible seed heads present

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

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Photo of oaten hay, which could increase risk of dental problems in horses

Is Oaten Hay Bad for My Horse’s Teeth?

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Oaten hay is commonly fed to horses. Recent research by Jackson et al (2018)1 suggests however that we should be cautious with oaten hay as it may be negatively affecting our horses’ dental health!

The Study on Oaten Hay and Horse’s Teeth

Dr Kirsten Jackson (https://dentalvet.com.au) and her co-researchers found in a study of 500 Western Australian horses, that oaten hay was significantly associated with an increased incidence of dental caries (tooth decay).

Peripheral caries improvement

Image credit: Dr Kirsten Jackson (https://dentalvet.com.au)

How does Oaten Hay do this?

Dental caries form when bacteria in your horse’s mouth metabolise sugars in the hay/ feed and produce the by-product of acid. This acid demineralises the teeth causing decay which in horses generally means the outer layer (cementum) is stripped from the teeth.

Because oaten hay can be so high in water soluble carbohydrates (WSC; also loosely called ‘sugars’) the oaten hay feeds the oral bacteria, a lot… and then they produce a lot of acid… and the acid demineralizes (eats away) the hard part of the teeth.

It is thought that the near constant supply of sugars to the bacteria in the mouth when a horse has constant access to oaten hay, and therefore the prolonged periods of exposure of the teeth to the acids produced by the bacteria is what puts horses on oaten hay at higher risk of disease.

What about other types of hay or pasture?

Dr Jackson reports that in the same study it was found that a meadow hay based diet was protective. And horses with access to good quality grazing all year round were less likely to have peripheral caries than horses that had no access to grazing.

Other similarly high WSC hays like ryegrass hay and other cereal hays like barley and wheaten hay will potentially put horses at the same risk as oaten hay.

What can be done if my horse has dental caries?

The good news is that because a horse’s teeth are constantly erupting, and the acid produced when high WSC hay is fed only affects the part of the tooth that is physically exposed to it (so the tooth below the gumline remains unaffected), dental caries can be treated.

Jackson et al 2021 showed that when oaten hay was swapped for a lower WSC meadow hay, it allowed teeth to start to recover.

The authors note that full recovery generally takes around 2 years.

Peripheral caries improvement

Image credit: Dr Kirsten Jackson (https://dentalvet.com.au)

Should oaten and other high WSC hays be completely avoided?

Not necessarily. It seems in this study that it was horses with free access to oaten hay that were most affected.

If you are in an area where other type of hay is difficult to source and using SOME oaten hay helps to get you through, then using some, mixed with a variety of other hays and/or access to pasture is potentially OK.

Also not all horses on oaten hay were affected so there is some individual variability in susceptibility to the caries so some horses can be ok on oaten but if your horse has caries it is best to avoid it. If your horse is on oaten hay and this can’t be avoided it is probably a good idea you have regular veterinary dental examinations conducted every 6 months.

If you are spoilt for choice with hay and can avoid oaten hay, you are probably best to avoid it completely… especially if you have a thoroughbred as they were also shown to be at higher risk!

References

1. Jackson, K., E. Kelty, and M. Tennant, Equine peripheral dental caries: An epidemiological survey assessing prevalence and possible risk factors in Western Australian horses. Equine Vet J 2018. 50(1):79-84.
2. Jackson, K., E. Kelty, and M. Tennant, Retrospective case review investigating the effect of replacing oaten hay with a non-cereal hay on equine peripheral caries in 42 cases. Equine Vet J 2021. 53(6):1105-1111.

 

Do you have other concerns about your horse’s teeth and forage? Read about how to feed horses with worn out teeth here: Feeding Horses with Worn Out Teeth (feedxl.com)

 

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

a horse eating forage

Straw as an Alternative Forage for Easy Keepers

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Straw is gaining favouritism among nutritionists and horse owners as part of diets for easy keepers. It allows energy intake of the diet to be reduced without drastic restriction in a horse’s daily feed intake.

This strategy is thought to improve the welfare of easy keepers and reduce the risk of colic and gastric ulceration, all common issues seen with feed restriction.

A recent study that substituted 50% of the grass haylage component of the diet with straw for horses, further supports the use of straw in easy keeper diets.

The main findings in the study (Jansson et al 2021) were that the 50% straw diet had:

  • No effect on squamous or glandular gastric ulcers scores
  • Longer feed intake times and lower energy intakes
  • Lower Insulin concentrations (a positive for those prone to laminitis)
  • A trend for higher serotonin levels (a key hormone that stabilises mood; inhibits aggression, fear and stress; supports intestinal motility; plays a role in fat tissue metabolism)
  • Gut sounds that reflected normal motility patterns and no changes in manure moisture content– indicating no major adverse effects on gut function.

Why Should You Consider Including Straw for Your Easy Keeper?

It is now widely accepted that horses should be eating a minimum of 1.5% of their bodyweight in forage per day (dry matter basis). This supports natural behaviour and minimises the risk of health complications such as gastric ulcers and colic.

However, for some easy keepers, this amount of forage alone can exceed energy requirements. Therefore, replacing some higher energy forage in the diet with low energy straw can allow owners of easy keepers to reduce the energy content of the diet without restricting intake below 1.5% of bodyweight.

More bulk. Less energy! Happier horses!!

Isn’t There a Risk of Gastric Ulcers on Straw Diets?

A previous study published in 2009 reported the incidence of gastric ulcers (both glandular and squamous) was increased in horses fed straw as their only roughage source. The authors (many of which are the same authors on the above-mentioned paper) suggested that mechanical damage, changes in the gastric contents, specifically the fibre ‘mat’ that forms in the stomach, and reduced buffering capacity due to low calcium and protein content of straw could have been the cause.

However, in the present study the severity and incidence of gastric ulcers decreased over the study period (2 x 21 days). This suggests that including up to 50% of the forage in diets as straw does not increase the risk of gastric ulceration.

And in fact the slower intake of straw is likely to be a good strategy for ensuring horses don’t go longer than 4 hours without feed. Which should then act to reduce the risk of ulcers.

Decreased Feed Intake, No Time Without Forage

The 50% straw diet offered in 2021 study contained the same amount of energy as the haylage only diet. This meant that horses on the straw diet were receiving more forage (based on dry matter) than the haylage diet.

However, the researchers found that the horses on the straw diet actually had leftovers which resulted in them consuming less energy each day (10.7MJ per 100kg bodyweight) compared with the haylage group (12.4MJ per 100kg bodyweight).

This suggests that because horses are ‘fuller’ or more satisfied on the straw diet, they are likely to eat less forage which may decrease energy intake without the need for intake restriction.

Longer Periods Spent Eating

Another benefit of the 50% straw diet was that horses spent more time eating each day compared with the haylage only diet. The authors calculated that the horses on the straw diet spent 11.2 hours per 24 hours eating whereas the control diet horses spent 6.2 hour per 24 hours eating – an 80% difference!

The most likely explanation is differences in palatability or some physiological response as the NDF (measure of the cell wall components such as hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) content of the two diets was very similar – NDF content is correlated to intake.

The authors noted that interestingly, the horses on the straw diet spent more time pausing their feed intake whereas the haylage diet was consumed almost at all at once.

Lower Insulin Response

Many easy keepers are at increased risk of laminitis. It is therefore in our best interest to feed a low sugar and starch diet which limits glucose and insulin responses.

In the present study, the insulin response was lower on the 50% straw diet than the haylage only diet. The total water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) intake was significantly lower for the straw diet (60g vs. 75g per 100kg bodyweight) so this was not unexpected but does highlight another possible advantage of including straw in diets.

Be mindful that this cannot necessarily be generalised for all straw and analysis is recommended to determine the actual starch and WSC content of any straw you might consider using.

Also interesting to note that the grass forages used in this study were by no means high in WSC, being 7.7% and 4.9%, as compared with the straw being 0.8%.

Higher Serotonin Levels in Horses on the 50% Straw Diet

This is super interesting and the authors offered the explanation that chewing more and being more satisfied from a hunger perspective is potentially increasing serotonin levels and may be the reason why horses are eating less and taking more pauses between eating when offered the 50% straw diet.
It is well known in humans that spending longer chewing meals reduces hunger levels, with chewing stimulating serotonin.

Does Feeding Straw Increase the Risk of Impaction Colic?

The present study showed no difference in gut sounds between the haylage only diet and the diet with 50% inclusion of straw over the 21-day study periods. Nor did the moisture content of the manure vary between the two groups.

A lack of fecal moisture (or in other words, the presence of dry manure) may indicate increased risk of impaction colic. The authors noted that certain individuals and even some breeds are more prone to impactions and owners should be cautious.

All changes in forages should be made gradually over several weeks to minimise the risk of colic providing a chance for fibre digesting bacteria to adapt.

No More HANGRY Horses on a Straw Diet?!

Using straw in diets can add another string to our bow for managing the weight and seemingly insatiable appetite of easy keepers.

The results of this study suggest that inclusion of up to 50% of the forage ration as straw does not cause gastric ulcers and may in fact improve the welfare of easy keepers by reducing energy intake on ad lib hay and prolonging the time they spend eating.

Straw in effect lets us feed more bulk, while providing less energy. And keeps our horses fuller, happier, chewing for longer and less stressed!

 

You might also be interested in our article ‘Using Straw to Achieve Weight Loss in Horses’.

 

Full article https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/8/2197

Jansson, A., Harris, P., Davey, S.L., Luthersson, N., Ragnarsson, S.and Ringmark, S. Straw as an Alternative to Grass Forage in Horses—Effects on Post-Prandial Metabolic Profile, Energy Intake, Behaviour and Gastric Ulceration. Animals, 2021, Issue 11, Volume 8, Pages 2197-2211.

 

 

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

three horses eating hay

Is Forage All a Horse Needs?

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Pasture or hay is all a horse needs! Or is it?

This is something we often hear… and 99% of the time it is WRONG!

Forages are (almost) always too low in trace minerals to meet a horse’s requirements and leaving them un-supplemented on forage only diets usually results in problems with their hooves, joints, immune system, muscles … everything really!

They may look OK, but there is usually a bunch of stuff going on inside that you can’t see until a deficiency is quite pronounced.

BUT, there are always exceptions to the rule and here is one example. This is a pasture from New Zealand that is able to meet all trace mineral requirements without any additional supplementation.

Even for selenium, which is something we don’t expect in New Zealand!

Sodium is a bit low (nothing unusual there) and iodine was not tested, but the fact is it is actually a pasture that horses would do OK on without extra supplementation. Just need a bit of iodised salt!

The horses on this pasture were being fed a selenium-containing balancer pellet and recently tested with blood selenium levels just in the high range (nothing scary, just high).

The lesson in this, forage analysis is a wonderful tool when assessing your horse’s diet and FeedXL makes it so super easy to really see what forage is providing and what you need to add, which in this case is very little.

If you’d like to have your forage tested, we love to recommend Equi-Analytical and within Australia, Feed Central (an affiliate laboratory of Equi-Analytical).

Once you have your analysis results, you can easily upload this into the FeedXL software to create your own hay or pasture (available on Standard or Premium plans only).

Not yet a Member of FeedXL?

Get EVEN MORE practical and personalised feeding guidance when you sign up to FEEDXL.


Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

Close up photo of grass

Setaria Grass and Bighead: What You Need to Know

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Setaria should really be classified as toxic for horses. It is a subtropical pasture with such high levels of oxalate that it makes it almost impossible to prevent Secondary Nutritional Hyperparathyroidism (Bighead disease) in horses grazing this grass.

Grasses like kikuyu and buffel grass readily cause bighead disease with an oxalate content of around 15 g/kg. Setaria contains anywhere between 30 and 80 grams of oxalate per kg of (90% dry matter) pasture… which translates to HUGE amounts of calcium being needed to balance the calcium to oxalate ratio to prevent bighead.

We have seen horses go from normal to severely affected in a matter of months on setaria. So if you have setaria in your pasture you need to be very aware of what you are feeding and how well this is meeting calcium (as well as phosphorus and magnesium) requirements.

FeedXL will help you in calculating the calcium to oxalate, calcium to phosphorus and calcium to magnesium ratios to keep your horse healthy. BUT, the first step is identifying that you have this grass in the first place so you know you need to be on your game with managing nutrition!

Here are some photos (below) of setaria on the NSW mid-north coast… setaria everywhere! Please take a look at the photos and then in your paddocks to see if you have setaria. And if you do, please do something sooner than later to prevent severe and often life-threatening calcium deficiency.

There is more information on Bighead here too if you need it at https://feedxl.com/25-bighead/

 

Join today to discover more

 

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Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

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A horse eating hay

Teff Hay vs Rhodes Grass Hay

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Teff Hay seems to be gaining popularity as a hay option for many horse owners and because it is sold as a low starch low sugar hay it is starting to be recommended in place of Rhodes Grass Hay.

BUT, if you are lucky enough to have access to Rhodes Grass Hay, here are some things to think about before considering a swap:

1. Rhodes Grass Hay is low in oxalate, containing approximately 2.5 to 3 g/kg of oxalate.

Teff Hay is moderate to high in oxalate at 10 to 12 g/kg. This means Teff needs careful supplementation of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium to prevent it from causing Bighead Disease. With Rhodes being so low in oxalate Bighead is not an issue (though you do still need to make sure you correctly balance the diet for minerals and vitamins as forages rarely contain enough to meet a horse’s requirement).

2. Rhodes Grass Hay is more reliable and consistent when it comes to the low starch, low sugar characteristic.

From the analyses we have seen coming through here at FeedXL, Teff can be high in starch, with one analysis sent through showing an as-fed starch content of 7.1% and total NSC of 13.7% which, for a laminitic horse, is going to be too high. While soaking would more than likely bring this non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) level back down to safe levels it makes for much more time-consuming feeding… so if you have access to Rhodes Grass it would be much easier to use this.

3. Teff Hay causes some odd behavioural issues in some horses and this is normally associated with an alkaline fecal pH.

We have no way of explaining this, and it doesn’t happen with all horses on Teff so I don’t know if all Teff Hay is the same or if there is a certain variety that causes this issue.

So, while Teff gives people in cooler climates a low NSC option which is welcome, it is not yet well understood and not without its issues. If I had a choice between Teff and Rhodes I would go with Rhodes Hay every time.

 

If you’d like to read more about oxalate and bighead disease, check out our blog: https://feedxl.com/25-bighead/

 

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

Two horses eating from a bale of hay outside

Do High Sugar Forages Make Horses Fatter?

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Many people wonder about how high sugar or high NSC forages affect their horse’s weight, so this is a question we are often asked. Our standard response has always been ‘well, it depends on the calorie content of the forage’, which then begs the question about the relationship between forage NSC and digestible energy content.

What exactly is the relationship between high sugar forages, digestible energy, and horse weight?  

In looking at 13 pasture samples from one farm, it seems the higher the NSC content, the higher the digestible energy (calorie) content. The pastures shown here were all sampled between 11 am and 2 pm on the same day. They were all dried at the same time and all were analyzed by Equi-Analytical.

A graph of Digestible Energy (calorie) value versus pasture non-structural carbohydrate (NSC = starch + water soluble carbohydrates) content is pretty clear for this particular set of pastures; as NSC increases so does digestible energy… which makes very logical sense given the NSC is a source of calories so the more NSC, the more calories.

So perhaps the answer should be ‘yes, high NSC forages will make your horses fatter faster than low NSC forages!’. And therefore yes, it makes sense to feed a low NSC forage when you are trying to achieve weight loss or avoid weight gain in your easy keepers.

For some tips on feeding an easy keeper see https://feedxl.com/11-feeding-the-easy-keeper/

 

 

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

Alfalfa for horses on a wagon in a field

Soft Manure in Horses on Fresh Lucerne/Alfalfa Hay? Try This!

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Does your horse get diarrhea on fresh alfalfa?

Lucerne/Alfalfa… if it is really fresh and green it will often cause scouring/diarrhea. We’re not sure what causes the scouring, BUT observation over the years is that once it is stored for a few months the problem goes away (hence the old advice to always feed ‘shedded’ hay)… so whatever it is in lucerne/alfalfa that causes the issue seems to be volatile and disappears after a while.

The issue often is that hay is in such short supply that all we can get is very fresh alfalfa/lucerne! We don’t have the luxury of waiting a couple of months for it to lose whatever it is that makes our horses scour… but here is what you can do!

A quick and easy fix

Take your bales, open them up and spread the pieces (biscuits, flakes, leaves… we call them all sorts of funny things depending on where you are in the world!) apart and let them sit for about a week (longer if you have the luxury of time) to air out. You should find that your horse’s gut will be much happier with it once it has had this chance to air out. If your hay seems particularly rich and is making horses scour badly try also sitting it in the sun.

Experience with lucerne/alfalfa in a polo stable in Asia where it was actually bursting horses’ stomachs was a real eye-opener. But once they started airing and sunning the hay like this (it was imported from the USA) the problem thankfully stopped.

If you are dealing with soft manure in horses on fresh lucerne/alfalfa give this a try. We would love to know what happens if you have time to leave a comment.

 

Do you have a question or comment? Do you need help with feeding?

We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!

Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group

 

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